March 5, 2009

Hanging Tree

Software
Tree has asserted the fortified
6,163,776 against HP, Red Hat, Genuitec and Dell. '776 claims data exchange
between an object-oriented system and a relational database. Red Hat is on the
hook for willfulness, as it was aware of the patent as prior art for technology
it's being sued for in another patent suit. Bad juju for Red Hat.

The patent was fortified courtesy of Oracle, who was a rival and business
partner to Software Tree. Now just rivals.

Oracle had requested reexamination, which happened in 2005. The very day that
concluded, the patent having survived, Software Tree sued Oracle. Oracle is
still under the gun of '776, with its invalidity defense already shot to hell.

Posted by Patent Hawk at March 5, 2009 12:14 PM
| Litigation

Comments

Hawk, looks like you called it:
"Delusional, Red Hat expressed belief that its settlement will serve as precedent to discourage similar suits. More likely, Red Hat has painted itself as an easy mark."